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lot 10

lot 10

Sayed Haider Raza

Shanti-Bindu

acrylic on canvas
47.25 x 47.25 in. (120 x 120 cm.)
painted in 2000

Bought-In

Estimate: US$ 120,000 - 180,000

Lot Closed

Lot Details

Signed and dated 'Raza 2000' (lower right)
Further signed, titled, dated and inscribed 'RAZA / "SHANTI - BINDU" / 120 x 120 cm / 2000 / Acrylic on Canvas' (on the reverse)

PROVENANCE
The Saffronart & Pundole Modern Indian Art Exhibition, The Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, May 2001
Aspects of Modern Indian Painting Exhibition, Saffronart and Pundole Art Gallery, New York, September 2002
Pundole's / Sale # M0021 / Lot 69 / The Fine Art Sale / Mumbai / 22 November 2018

EXHIBITED
The Saffronart & Pundole Modern Indian Art Exhibition, The Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, 12-16 May 2001
Aspects of Modern Indian Painting Exhibition, Saffronart and Pundole Art Gallery, New York, 28 September - 1 October 2002

Sayed Haider Raza first painted the Bindu in the late 1970s as a single solid black dot that lay unmoving at the center of a field of colors. Through the years, however, this circle or bindu manifested itself in various forms in his works and took on several different meanings, as zero, drop, or seed. It became less of a graphical component and more as the focal point on which Raza structured his canvases.

Here, the artist has turned to yet another interpretation of the bindu, executed in an almost abstinent palette of white and grays. Titled, Shanti - Bindu, the rings that radiate from the spherical white core of the painting transmits outward spreading tranquility and calmness. Once again, the bindu was transformed, from a pulsing black orb to a gentler quality, emitting an image of ethereal stillness and peace.

Likening his monochromatic works to his spiritual journey, Raza posited: "I have found a divine quest in me to come to the essentials. Less is more. And I thought, that to express my aspirations to the divine, I would use fewer colors, to create a sacred feel."

Sayed Haider Raza

(1922 - 2016)
Born in 1922 in Babaria, Madhya Pradesh, Raza graduated from the Nagpur School of Art in 1943 and the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1947. He was one of the founding members of the Progressive Artists’ Group in 1948. After receiving a French Government Scholarship in 1950 he left for Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, where he was awarded the Prix de la Critique in 1956. In 1962 he served as a visiting lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley, USA. Raza has several solo exhibitions to his credit, including ‘Paysage: Select Works 1950s-1970s’, ‘Parikrama: Around Gandhi’, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2014; ‘Shabd-Bindu’, Akar Prakar, Kolkata, in 2013; ‘Vistaar’, Art Musings and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2012-13, ‘Bindu Vistaar’, Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 2012; ‘Punarangman’, Vadehra Art Gallery and Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, in 2011; ‘Ones’ at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2011 and 2010; Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2008 and 2006; and Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery, London and New York, 2005. In 2007 Saffronart held a major retrospective of his work in New York. Raza’s work has been exhibited in several group exhibitions including those at Aicon Gallery, New York and London, in 2014, 13, 12, 11, 10; the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, in 2009; Grosvenor Gallery, London, Mumbai, 2004; Saffronart and Pundole Art Gallery, New York, 2001 and 2002; and Saffronart, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, 2001 among several others. Raza received a Lalit Kala Ratna from the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in 2004, and a Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2007 and 1981 respectively. The Madhya Pradesh State Government also awarded him with the Kalidas Samman in 1996-97. Raza lived and worked in Paris and Gorbio, France, till 2011. The artist passed away in New Delhi in July 2016.